What Kind of Future Does Voicemail Have in Recruiting?

Perhaps nothing has had as much of an impact on the world of recruiting during the past 20 to 30 years than technology . . . and that impact doesn’t appear to be lessening over time.

In fact, there’s new evidence that it continues to wield its progress-driven saber, specifically that the use of voicemail has fallen due to the widespread use of text and chat.

So says a recent article in USA Today. The article states that Vonage, an Internet phone company, recently released data indicating that the number of voicemail messages left on user accounts was down 8% in July from a year ago.

However, that’s not even the most interesting statistics contained in the article. That statistic would be this one: the number of voicemail messages that were actually retrieved by Vonage users fell 14% during the same period.

Clearly, more and more people are considering voicemail to be a nuisance, rather than a tool for communication. That fact could clearly affect the way in which recruiters attempt to communicate, especially with candidates.

What’s been YOUR experience? Do you receive less of a response when you leave a voicemail than you have in the past? Do you consider the act of retrieving your own voicemail messages a bit of a hassle?

And with all of this in mind, what does the future of voicemail hold? Does it have a future? If it does, what form will that future take?

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(Matt Deutsch, the Communications Coordinator at Top Echelon, is a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.)